


Lifecycles

by Ellisama



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/M, For Yuki, Reincarnation AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 13:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9898961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellisama/pseuds/Ellisama
Summary: ‘May we meet again in a better life.’Time passes on and on, but Robin remembers.





	

“It’s like you’re a part of me that I didn’t know I was missing all this time!” He says to her on their fourth date, the wind in his hair and a lovesick spark in his eyes that she knows will not fade with age.

Robin smiles, taking in the dimples in his cheeks and the angle of his chin. It’s familiar, but he’s not always this clean shaven. Must have done it to impress her, she thinks fondly to herself, and takes another sip of her milkshake. McDonalds perhaps wasn’t the most romantic place for a fourth date, but neither of them really care for such gestures. Except, he does, but isn’t confident enough to tell her yet, afraid of coming on too strong.

He doesn’t know that the feeling of being two halves of a greater whole is mutual, and that she knew him like the back of her hand long before meeting him in that pub, a mere month ago. Robin knew he was going to ask her out even before the bartender had delivered the drink and Chrom that terrible pick up line. She had laughed, not because of his words but because of his face, earnest and still so young. How could she have said no to such a lovely boy? 

She orders another burger for him, knowing that he is a big eater and needs at least two more before he’s full. He won’t order it, too busy fumbling with something in his pocket. It’s probably a ring that he bought the night after their first date or somewhere around that time, talking Emmeryn’s head off about finding _‘the one’_. For all the cool act he has been putting up, she knows he’s a romantic at heart who just wants to make her his, get a nice home and have as many kids as she will agree to bear him. 

Robin knows all of this, or rather, she remembers. She has seen it hundreds of times before in the many thousands of years of her long life.

Chrom had called it mercy when Naga returned her to the land of the living after all was said and done, but today she wasn’t too sure. After a decade of reforming Ylisse next to her husband and children, it became apparent that something was not right. White hairs appeared on Chrom’s face, but her skin would not wrinkle. Not even when they were well past their sixties did she look a day older than she had been the day he found her again in that field outside of Ylisse. 

But Grima was gone and Naga remained silent, perhaps sleeping for the rest of her eternal life, so there were no answers. The day of his funeral she looked as young as the day she had married him, but nothing of the sorts could be said about the soul when she burried her own children and grandchildren in the decades that followed. 

A hundred years later did she find a boy named Chrom, more alike to the original one than her heart could bear. She stalked him, like a predator stalks his prey, and watched him grow up lonely, forever staring into the void besides him until the day an enemy sword pierced his unprotected back. The very one she had sworn to protect. 

 _“Reincarnation,”_ Tiki explained to her later. “The cycle of life that forever separates us from the humans.” 

“But I _am_ human!” She had cried, despite the knowing feeling in her chest that told her to stop lying. 

Tiki’s silence was merciful. It wasn’t until many hundreds of years later, long after even Nah had succumbed to her human blood, that she finally uncovered what she was.

 _What doesn’t live, cannot die,_ and she hadn’t truly been alive for many years. The great taboo, committed by the divine dragon herself by creating a being outside of time, destined to roam the lands she had abandoned for the rest of eternity. 

But, never truly alone. Every other few years a familiar face would show up, and with every passing year Robin began to believe in destiny more and more. They never recognized her, or remembered the trials they faced together, but over the years the piercing in her heart had simmered down to a quiet ache that welled up every now and then. Sully worked as a cashier in Starbucks this time around, purposely writing names wrong to annoy people. Virion still couldn’t pick up a girl to save his life, and Cherche still cleaned up his messes behind him. They were all as closely interwoven with each other as they were with her, even if they would never know it. 

But, none as closely as the boy in front of her. His hair was a shade lighter than the previous few incarnations and the brand of the Exalt was nowhere to be seen, but he was the same as always and _oh_ how she had missed him. 

He wrinkled his nose just like Lucina had, and for a second she considered excusing herself to the bathroom and walking right out of his life. He’d be sad for a while, but he would survive. She on the other hand still remembered the day she received the letter from the military, fifty years ago, informing her that sadly her husband had died in battle. All that remained of that incarnation was a dusty grave and his dog tags around her neck. 

No matter how many times he died, the grief was always the same, and sometimes she decided that it was not worth it to feel that pain over and over again. It would not kill her - _but oh, how she tried_ \- but sorrow _could_ kill her unborn child. Just like that, she was alone once more. 

It was the twinkle in his eyes that made her stay, at least for the night. What was one night in the face of several thousands of years? He would never know more of her pasts than a children’s tale about a hero king and his immortal queen, would never rule a country and would never know how many children she had buried. (Of all the languages she had learned over the years, none of them had a word for a parent who had lost their child. Widow and orphan all applied, but it was not the same, never the same.) 

Her heart could not stop beating but was there still enough left of it to give away? This Chrom would eventually fade too, first the blue of his hair, then his sight and eventually his heartbeat. What was a few moments of happiness in the face of eternal suffering, she wondered while she invited him into her house anyway. 

Before the morning came, he would be in love. She knew it, remembered the way he had said it a million times before, breathless on the battlefield but also dancing in the rain. And she would love him long after he had passed, remembering regardless of if she turned him out of his life after today, or had Lucina and Morgan with him. This memory of eden would haunt her forever more, and the cycle continued.

**Author's Note:**

> *offers up this old drabble to appease the readers*
> 
> I don't have the time to work on my old works right now, so please take this! This was originally written for Yukiwrites on tumblr, in return for some fluff (we both have our area of expertise...). This was originally titled 'Cycle', but since then I read Kala's "Cycle" epic fanfic, so I had to rename this. I hope I made you cry just a bit, if only on the inside.


End file.
